The Dauntless Penguin
by Sasuke10
Summary: Tyler is just your average antisocial 15 year old Dauntless kid. Until he gets notified that he must partake in the Choosing Ceremony-a year before everyone else. Will he survive initiation? Will he become a true member of Dauntless? Set a year before Tris' initiation. Rated T just to be careful, and I do not own nor claim to own the picture used as the cover image. Please r&r!


**Author's Note: **This is set the year before Tris becomes an initiate. I'm changing Tobias and Eric's ages to 19 instead of 18 for storyline purposes. A few things may also be changed but nothing incredibly major. Thank you and please read and review :)

**Chapter One: Chosen**

The day of the aptitude test was one of the worst days of my life. Another was a day the week before that I found out I was actually _taking _the aptitude test. The way it works, since you take the test with a group of other 16 year olds, depends on the person. Some people turn 16 a lot sooner than others. Sometimes (very rarely), if you turn 16 in the next week or so they'll make you take it when you're fifteen, but only if you're an outstanding student. Anyway, the way it works is that each of the faction's leaders will create a list of the kids in their faction to take the test, and then they'll contact those kids to let them know.

It was early April, and I had just turned 15 in February, so when I was contacted by someone that I was going to take the aptitude test, I almost threw up. Why worry about a stupid test so much? Well, for most factions initiation isn't that bad. It's mainly just to let you get used to the ropes and how everything works. Mostly it's for transfers.

But for Dauntless? For Dauntless it's a battle the whole time. I've heard stories of initiation from the older kids, and mainly my brother. The first half is spent of physical combat and marksmanship, and the next is spent in your fear landscape.

"But, you may not be Dauntless." Is what some will say, and to that? To that I laugh. I was born and raised Dauntless, and I come from a family of born and raised Dauntless. It's not so much that I feel obligated to be Dauntless, rather that I just am.

But as soon as I found out, I knew I was hooked line-and-sinker to end up Factionless, those of us who don't belong in a faction. I would be fighting sixteen year olds, who would literally be a whole year older than me, not just a few months. Hell, some of them would be close to two years older than me.

When my father and brother found out, they both contacted leadership to try and get me out of it. It was a mistake, it had to be. And while the leadership was extremely puzzled about how it had come about, I was stuck in it. The final list was the final list and I was on it. I would have to deal with it. Why be afraid of going through initiation as an early 15 year old? True Dauntless are brave.

So the day of the aptitude test I sat in my small room, only big enough for my bed and a shelf where I kept my knife set and my gun that shot these darts that simulated the pain of a real gunshot, and stared at the wall. I sat there for a while, before finally going in to the bathroom and looking at myself in the mirror. I had blonde hair that reached down to the bottom of my ears and bangs that brushed my eyebrows, and two clear blue eyes staring at me. All of our family's friends said that I looked just like my mother. I wore the typical Dauntless get-up, a pair of black pants and shirt that where comfortable fitting and not too tight or loose and a pair of black shoes.

"Hey, Ty! You gotta get going or you're going to be late for the test!" My dad called from the kitchen. I sighed, raked my hand through my hair, and strode out to the living room.

My brother, Justin, sat on the couch twirling one of his knives between his fingers. His feet were propped up on the shabby wooden table we had positioned in front of our equally shabby couch, and he smirked at me slyly. Everyone says that Justin looks just like our father. He has short, brown hair and green eyes. Everyone says that my brother and I could have a staring contest and kill each other with how sharp and piercing our eyes are. Funny how two completely different colors could be as equally piercing, and at the same time have so many ways to mold together.

"Good luck today, Tyler." He said as I opened the door.

"Yeah, whatever." I mumbled. My brother and I didn't have the greatest relationship. While I did love him, it was strange and complicated and dumb.

I walked down the neighborhood I lived in, which wasn't one of the best in Dauntless. In fact, it was probably the worst. But, I somehow managed to know everybody, and everybody pretty much liked me. Somehow they hadn't managed to hate me as much as they hated my brother, or take their anger out on me. The only people who took their hatred for my brother out on me was Eric and his friends.

Eric is one of Dauntless' leaders. He was in the same group of initiates as my brother a few years ago. Justin and Eric hated each other from school, and the initiation process only made it worse. Justin was ranked two, behind this guy named Four, and Eric was ranked three. Eric hated Four almost as much as Justin, and he only hated Justin more because Justin always managed to get in Eric's face all the time.

I stopped as I reached the train tracks that ran outside my neighborhood, and waited for a few minutes. I closed my eyes and savored the heat radiating off of my from the sun and the light breeze that waved my hair around in it. Then, I felt the ground start to rumble. I opened my eyes and looked down the tracks to find the train turning the corner and headed towards me.

Instinct from doing this a million times took over. I instantly turned and took off in a jog away from the train, gradually kicking it in to a full sprint as the train neared. The train reached and overtook me, the first set of handles passing me by slowly.

_1...2...now!_ I thought to myself after the handle had passed me, and I glanced back just in time to grab the second set of handles and throw my foot in to the foothold beneath them. I hoisted myself in to the cabin of the train and glanced around, expecting to see some of my friends from school. However, I quickly realized I was alone. All of the people in here were either in the year above me, and some were even two. I sighed and sat down against the wall right by the door, waiting in silence.

Eventually I heard the people in the first cabin screaming in excitement, and looked out the door to find them jumping. We had reached the building that the test was conducted in. I smirked and stood up, watching as people in my cabin started hollering and jumping off the train themselves. I was the last to jump out of my cabin, and as my feet left the floor of the train I was suspended in the air for the moment of perpetual bliss and weightlessness, and then hit the ground rolling over my shoulder and standing up. Jumping off the train was one of my favorite things to do of the day.

See the thing about Dauntless? We're a bunch of adrenaline junkies essentially. We're the protectors of the factions, the soldiers. We're the fearless ones, always brave and ready to fight. We aren't fearless, no. To be fearless is to be stupid. To be brave is to be able to continue on and conquer that fear. And so everyday we put ourselves through things we consider to be fun, and what others would consider to be suicidal.

I stand up and dust myself off, before following everyone else in to the building, which is coincidentally the school. They usher all of us, everyone from the five different factions that are taking the test, in to the cafeteria. They have ten different rooms where they administer the test, and every so often a name gets called from the cafeteria and they tell us which room to go to.

I sit down at a table near, but not next to, other Dauntless members. I don't know them, and I'm sure they don't know me. Or, if they do, they don't greet me. A few seats down a group of Amity kids clad in yellow and red are playing a card game. Amity, the faction for the kind. At the tables across from me sit a group of Abnegation clad in grey, talking about what Stiffs (the slang term for an Abnegation) talk about. Next to them are Candor clad in black and white. Abnegation are selfless, they don't dwell on themselves so much as they do on other people; and Candor are honest, even when they shouldn't be. And finally, at the table behind me, are a group of Erudite. They are clad in blue suits or dresses. Erudite are the brains of the factions, they love to learn and they learn a lot, quickly.

I am in the middle of counting ceiling tiles when a woman shouts "Livington, Tyler." from across the room. I had been on tile 73 and had almost been done, but now I will forever wonder how many tiles are really on the ceiling. I stand and walk to her, where she leads me in to the hall and points down to a room. "Room 4." I nod and walk in to the room, where an Erudite man stands next to a chair.

The room's walls are all mirrors. I can see every angle of myself and the man, and instantly I think of how easy it would be to incapacitate a novice fighter in this room. The man is tinkering with a machine next to the chair, and motions to it without looking up.

"My name is Dean, please have a seat." I slide in to the seat and recline it back a little, getting nice and comfortable. Instantly the man starts attaching electrodes to my forehead, and then attaching some to his own forehead. He attaches some more wires between us and the machine, before handing me a small glass, about the size of a shot glass, of some clear liquid to me. "Drink up."

I stare at the glass for a minute, before downing the awful tasting liquid in one gulp, and then my eyes close.

I open my eyes almost instantly, but now I'm in a different room in a different time. The room is familiar, and then I realize that I'm in the cafeteria again, but all of the people and tables are gone. I glance out the window to see it pouring rain, something that would be odd for that time of the year. I look forward again and am surprised to find that there are two pedestals in front of me, one holding a large hunk of meat and the other a long knife.

"Choose." A commanding voice suddenly comes from behind me. Instantly, I scoop the knife up and spin around, expecting to find an enemy, but no one is there. Confused, I glance about the room, only to find that the two pedestals are gone. Suddenly, I hear a menacing and dark growl from behind me. Spinning around, I find a large black dog snarling at me from across the cafeteria.

It bares it's teeth at me and snarls, spittle flying everywhere. I stare at it for a few moments, before glaring right in to it's eyes. The dog barks viciously, before charging me. I clench my teeth together, and grip the knife tightly. I've grown up around knives and guns and all kinds of weapons my whole life. A mangy mutt isn't going to get the best of me today. As the dog nears me I watch as it bunches its muscles and leaps at my throat, and I instinctively duck and stab up with the knife, plunging it in to the beast's chest.

However as soon as the knife were to sink in to the dog's chest, the scene disappears and suddenly I am on a bus, the dog or knife nowhere to be seen. A man sits in the chair next to me with a newspaper in his hands, which are scarred from previous burns.

"Do you know this man?" He asks me as he shows me the cover of the newspaper, which reads 'Brutal Murderer Finally Apprehended!' Beneath the title is a picture of a man in his early to mid thirties. I do not know the man, but I do recognize him. From where though, I do not know. I take a few moments longer to read the paper and picture than I should have, however.

"Well? Do you?" There is anger in the man's voice, and it instantly starts to set me off.

"Yes, I do." The man's eyes light up in hope.

"Then you have to come with me! This man tried to kill me earlier this year, that's where these scars are from, if you testify that he causes harm to others I could get the treatment I need to get my hands working fully again!" I knit my eyebrows together and look at the picture again, and then glance at the watch on the man's wrists. The time is 4:50. I am already late home, and if I am any later my brother will beat the living daylights out of me. I shake my head at the man.

"I can't. I don't know where I know the man from, plus I have to be home."

"But you could help save me!" The man shouts, suddenly standing.

"No. I can't." I growl defiantly at the man.

Suddenly I am gasping and sitting up in the chair, back in the testing room.I cough a couple of times as saliva slides down my wind pipe, before sighing and looking at the Erudite man (what was his name? Dean?), who was messing with the machine again.

"Your test results were as predicted. Dauntless. Have a nice day." I nod and stand, leaving the room and heading back in to the cafeteria, where I sit back in my seat and start over counting the ceiling tiles. By the time everyone finished their tests and they let us go, I had finished counting the tiles. 97 tiles, and 64 half tiles. So, technically 129 tiles. But yeah.

I caught the train and rode it back home to Dauntless, and because school was still in none of my friends were around. Instead of sitting alone in the Pit like a loser, or trailing after my brother, I decided to stop by the tattoo shop and hang with Tori.

Tori was probably the only adult who treated me like I wasn't 15. She wasn't even really an adult. She was like 20. Three years ago her brother had been thrown to the bottom of the chasm because leadership had found out he was Divergent. Being Divergent was considered dangerous by almost every faction's leadership and members. Personally, I didn't care. Being Divergent pretty much means that you don't belong in one specific factions- you could easily fit in to multiple.

I don't see why it's that bad, if I could be brave, honest, kind, smart, and selfless I'd be perfect. Hell I'd be the ultimate chick magnet. But, sadly I'm not. I don't tell anyone the truth, because in the past the truth has gotten me in a ton of trouble. I'm too selfish for Abnegation, and I've watched people squirm or hurt without helping. Not because I didn't want to, but most of the time it was the bullies, and I've been bullied since I was four. I'm pretty smart, but not Erudite smart. In school I had straight A's with the occasional B, but I didn't walk around spouting random facts like Erudite kids. I studied for tests, and pretty much forgot everything I had studied the hour after the test.

As I strolled in to the tattoo shop, my hands shoved as deep in to my pockets as they would go, I glanced around quickly for Tori. Finally, I found her at a table next to her station, pen in hand as she bent over a piece of paper. Upon hearing the door close, she glanced behind her to see who had entered, and a large smile spread across her face.

"There's my future tattoo artist!" She laughed as she stood up and crossed the parlor rather quickly to embrace me. I laughed as I hugged her back, before following her over to her station so she could continue her sketch. Tori had been like the big sister to me I'd always wanted. Hell, she was a better sibling to me than Justin had been. I've always been able to draw since I was little, and as I grew older and didn't have but two friends at most I'd spent a lot of my time drawing, and had gotten rather good. That's how I'd met Tori.

I had been sitting in a corner of the pit by myself three years ago with a sketchbook that my mother had bought for me, just minding my business and drawing a really cool picture of a tree. Then Paul, the bully in the grade above me, came over and took my sketchbook. He was just being a general ass about the whole thing, shouting about how drawing was for girls and that I wasn't really a boy, blah blah blah. Well, Tori was in the near vicinity and she took up for me. She made Paul and his lackeys go away, and handed me my sketchbook that they had dropped. Before she did though, she flipped through it after seeing the drawing of the tree. She told me that I was really good, and she offered to help me out some. Since that day I'd pretty much been spending my time between doing nothing at home and sitting in the tattoo shop drawing pictures for Tori to critique and help me get better as an artist.

I later found out that when Tori had defended me it had only been a few weeks since her brother had been killed. One of the other tattoo artists had told me that helping me out with my drawing had helped Tori deal with her brother's death a lot. It was then that I realized I meant as much to Tori as she did to me.

"What're you working on?" I asked as I looked over her shoulder at her drawing. She didn't have that much done, it looked like she had just started it not too long before I came in.

"I'm drawing a hummingbird for this one chick that came in a few hours ago."

"A hummingbird? That's pretty generic." I reached over and grabbed a chair from nearby, plopping down next to her.

"Oh is it now?" She chuckled. "Tell me, Mr. Tattoo Professional, what winged animal would you have tattooed on your body then?"

I leaned back in the chair and looked at the ceiling as I thought. Many minutes passed as Tori worked and I thought in silence. Finally, I came up with an answer.

"Penguin."

"Huh?" Tori looked up and stopped drawing, seemingly having forgotten the question she posed at me.

"I'd get a penguin tattooed on me."

"Why a penguin?"

"Well, they have two wings but they can't fly. It's like a cruel joke, really. Giving an entire species these things that other species use to fly, but now this one species can't use them to fly. But, at some point the first penguin figured out that with their seemingly useless wings they could swim faster than any other bird species. It's a metaphor to life."

"Continue to enlighten me."

"Well, I would get a tattoo of a penguin to resemble life I guess. They were given something that all these other things used to fly, but found out they couldn't fly. But they didn't let that fact make them go extinct. Instead they found a new way to adapt and use those wings to their advantage. They didn't give up when the going got tough." I chuckled as I paused. "In a way you could say penguins are truly dauntless."

Tori smirked and shook her head as she went back to her drawing. "This is why I like having you around. You are so incredibly insightful."

I stayed there for a few more hours, helping Tori with her drawing a bit, before deciding that I should probably get home. When I got home my parents were still at work, which was normal. They were always out late. It was currently about 7 at night. I walked in to the kitchen to heat up leftovers, and found Justin sitting at the table staring at me.

"What are you staring at me for?" I asked as I opened the fridge and looked around. "Dammit, Justin." I groaned. "Did you eat the leftover meatloaf?"

Justin continued to stare at me in silence. It was starting to get really unsettling.

"Well, it's not that big of a deal I guess. Aand, you're in one of your homicidal mood swings I think, soo I'm just going to go to bed." I said as I closed the fridge. I turned to leave the kitchen but suddenly Justin was up on his feet and crossed the kitchen before I could move another foot.

"Woah, dude come on. Move." I said as I tried to push around my brother. However, Justin was about a foot taller than me, and had a lot more muscle. All he did was push against my chest, but I fell back on to the linoleum floor on my butt.

"Justin!" I shouted, but as I moved to stand up Justin was bent over me, grabbing the collar of my shirt and breathing in to my face.

"Do you think this is _funny?_" He shouted, the sudden volume in his voice making me flinch.

"What're you talking about?" I asked.

"Linda. She said that her little brother Gabe caught you making out with some other _guy_?" Oh, so that's where this was going.

"Gabe is a little swine!" I shouted. "He was lying. He's hated me since we were five, Justin!" Gabe was one of Paul's friends, only he was my age. He was the one who always made stories up to get everyone to believe I was gay. Mainly just to have scenes like this happen. Justin was super homophobic. Hated even hearing the mention of gays. He believed that being gay was a sign of weakness, and even if you were related to someone that was gay, you were also weak.

"It better be a lie, Tyler. Or so help me god you would wish you were already dead." Justin breathed in my face, before pushing me back in to the floor, slamming his foot in to my ribs just to make a statement.

As I laid on the floor groaning, Justin stood up, grabbed his jacket, and left the house. Presumably to go drinking with his friends. It took me approximately twenty minutes before I managed to drag myself to bed, where I laid for another hour thinking about the Choosing Ceremony tomorrow. I wasn't worried about choosing, no that was easy. I was Dauntless through and through. What I was worried about was what came after the Choosing Ceremony.

Initiation.


End file.
